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By: Caitlin Behles | January 26, 2018 - 6:27pm

On December 22, 2017, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 2397 increasing sanctions on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) in response to the state’s latest ballistic missile test on November 28, 2017. Acting under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, the Security Council tightened sanctions to restrict all refined petroleum products, limiting the country’s imports of refined petroleum to 500,000 barrels for twelve months starting in January 2018, and caped crude oil at its current levels for the same period. The resolution also states that member states shall repatriate all DPRK nationals that are earning income in their states immediately, and no later than within twenty-four months. The Council condemned the DPRK’s ballistic missile launch in the strongest of terms and reaffirmed its decision “that the DPRK shall not conduct any further launches that use ballistic missile technology, nuclear tests, or any other provocation; shall immediately suspend all activities related to its ballistic missile program and in this context re-establish its pre-existing commitments to a moratorium on all missile launches; shall immediately abandon all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs in a complete, verifiable and irreversible manner, and immediately cease all related activities; and shall abandon any other existing weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs in a complete, verifiable and irreversible manner.”